What does it mean to bet it all? To take a risk where failure comes at an incredible cost. This is a place where only the brave go
forward, the brave or the stupid. Perhaps it's because progress is rarely
made without a bold roll of the dice. In 1973, the founder of FedEx, Fred Smith, was facing bankruptcy. So he bet the last $5,000 the company had on blackjack
and he won, keeping the doors open and paving the way to an $85
billion empire. In 1976, a young man
dropped out of Harvard to chase his dream, risking his future on the chance
that he was right. Bill Gates would go on to become
the richest man in history just a few decades later and changed
the future of personal computing forever. And in Japan in the 1950s an eccentric little car company
decided to bet it all, taking the chance that a strange new form of propulsion
might just change the world. A shot in the dark that would set
in motion a chain of events. A struggling automaker
saved from annihilation. The pride of an entire nation as they took
the top spot on the world stage. And the birth
of one of the most beautiful sports cars ever made. All thanks to one last try. One final roll of the dice on the off chance that it might just work. This is the story of how a Japanese company took on a dare
and how they proved that bold
risk is the only way to reap bold rewards. This is the story of the RX-7 Now, this story about a Japanese car begins
not in Japan, but Germany. And yeah, the dark and evil
Germany of the thirties in the forties you see there in Germany
was a young inventor named Felix Wankel. Young Felix is kind of the anti-hero
of this story. You may love his invention,
but you might hate the man himself. Or at least you're about to. It's pre-war time. Felix and his family
see a fascist rally in the twenties. And just like many other impressionable
Germans, he is inspired. Is motivated. He's radicalized. Suddenly,
our young Felix is one of the bad guys. Yes. Many smart minds were forced into the German war machine,
out of necessity, out of survival. But Wankel’s involvement
was purely voluntary. He was kind of down for the cause. So eager, in fact, that in the 1930s
he was actually kicked out of the party for pushing for them
to be more militaristic. A certain budding world
supervillain liked him, though, so he danced back and forth
within the fascist regime, even advising the top brass on technology
matters. Many argue that he simply did this
to further his career aspirations. Making a deal with the devil
to ascend to greatness. Luckily, the devil didn't win. Now I'm telling you the story
not to get you to hate Mazda, or even really Wankel himself, but merely as a case of fact,
being truly stranger than fiction. A radical scientist
on the wrong side of history all the way on the other
side of the world, becomes the center of a story
about a small Japanese brand's grand designs, and ultimately the story
of how they both failed to achieve the greatness
that they felt was so attainable. Now, despite his unfavorable beliefs,
Wankel was a visionary. Felix had no degrees. He didn't even have a driver's license. But even from a young age,
he had dreamt of a simple engine that completed all four stages
of internal combustion as simply as possible
intake, compression, combustion exhaust, all while spinning and operating
with as few moving pieces as possible. He set about this dream in 1924, but wouldn't really make any progress
for over two decades. You see, Felix was a visionary, but he kind of had dogsheet eyesight. His designs were flawed. The only saving grace for his rotary
engine was Wankels co-developer. Dr. Walter Froede You see, Walter was actually an engineer. You know, you could, like,
actually do math and make things work. In 1951, Wankel Froede
and their team announced that they had completed the world's
first Wankel Rotary engine, a moment that must have felt like
a revolution, pun intended. It was an entirely new way
of propelling the world smaller, lighter, simpler, utilizing
as few moving pieces as possible. No valves, no springs, crankshaft cams. Everything was gone. Your average four cylinder engine has over
40 moving parts. Winkles Rotary would have just three
two rotors and an output shaft. All the energy perfectly balanced. Unlike the piston engine, which converts
a vertical motion into a circular motion. The rotary is already spinning
perfectly balanced and simple and capable
of incredibly high revolutions. So it made sense that the Rotary was set
to take the automotive world by storm. Hundreds of manufacturers rushed
to license the technology from Felix, and one unlucky brand took home the rights
to one of the worst engines ever made. The decision
to adopt the rotary engine into Mazda may be one of the biggest gambles
in all of automotive history. Was it a good or a bad decision? I think there's points to be made
on both sides. Now, to understand
why Mazda was crazy enough to bet it all on Wankel, you have to understand
where Mazda was at the time. Postwar Japan was merging
larger companies left and right. Nissan having taken on
Prince, was eyeing Mazda next, but Mazda was desperate to avoid
being stuffed in the pocket of Nissan. So desperate decisions were made
and they bet it all on a high school dropout
fascist with bad eyesight. in 1961, Mazda was run by a man named Tsuneji Matsuda,
the son of Mazda's founder. Matsuda saw this revolutionary new
propulsion system as a way to pull Mazda out of the depths and save the company
in his father's honor. By this time, the secret was kind of out. Winkles Rotary was, you know,
there's not a nice way to say this. A bit sheet, It had low compression. The eccentric shafts
were really hard to make. It was loud, it was dirty, and ultimately,
it wasn't very efficient. A few companies had already tried
their hands with the Rotary, Mercedes-Benz and Isuzu. Remember Isuzu... I should make a video about them. Anyway, everyone who took a rotary back to their home
countries quickly abandoned the project. Even Walter Froede’s best efforts only
produced a motorcycle that smoked out The whole neighborhood
was louder than a jet engine and needed a service
that no one in Japan was trained to do. So why did
Mazda think they could do better? It might have been because of the vision
of one man, Kenichi Yamamoto. Kenichi was a devoutly religious man and believed
in the spirit of the Japanese people. He thought that he and his people could
solve the problem that no one else could. He believed that they could make
the rotary engine actually work. So Kenichi was given the task
of heading Mazda's Rotary Engine development, aka R.E. He led a team of 47
engineers nicknamed the 47 Ronin, dubbed so because they were the most loyal
and dedicated of Mazda's engineers, fiercely committed to the singular task of making this crazy
bet on Rotary technology work. And they're in a facility not far from
the crater that ended World War Two. The 47 Ronin
set about their impossible business. Kenichi’s team quickly produced their first prototype
of Felix Winkles design. And it was, well. Garbage might be an insult to garbage
at this point in development. The team quickly learned about one of
the first problems of rotary engines. Lovingly named Devil's
Nail marks by its name alone. You can just feel the frustration
the engineers must have felt when dealing with this. These nail marks or chatter
marks were waves and distortion caused by vibrating apex seals that led
to the engine basically self-destructing. Now, lesser men would have realized
that Mazda had essentially bought a cursed
engine design and given up. But you didn't get to be
one of the 47 Ronin by being a quitter. Long nights, a lot of coffee
and some ingenuity provided the team with an answer. New aluminum carbon composite, apex seals and reworked oil fuel mixtures solved
the devilish chatter problem. The rotary engine would now show almost no signs of wear and tear
after 100,000 kilometers. And it was no longer chugging oil
just as fast as it did gasoline. With the addition of some extra rotors,
they solved the Rotary's other issue. Low end torque. And in just two short years, Mazda's
Roland had built the world's first production
rotary engine for a mass produced vehicle. The 10A and for better or worse,
the rotary engine was ready to be unleashed upon the world. In the 1960s, Japan
finally realized the potential of marketing their machines
to the greater world. And they designed beautiful, purposeful sports cars
to break through and grab those customers. What they created were revelations. Toyota's 2000 GT. Nissan's Fairlady Z. Even Honda's S800 iconic sports cars
that captivated the world and put Japan on the map
as a serious car manufacturer. And their among them
was Mazda's entry, the Cosmo in 1964. Heiji Kobayashi, a relatively unknown
car designer, set out to design a car
unlike anything else. When you're launching the world's
first car, powered by a wild new technology, you don't just slap it on
some commuter car. You dare to dream. The ultra compact size of the rotary
engine meant that the Cosmo had no need for a really long hood, meaning
it could break from the typical Coke bottle design
of other sports cars from the time. Kobayashi took inspiration
for the Cosmos design from everywhere. The Ford Thunderbird. The Ferrari 400 by Pininfarina,
the Japanese bullet trains, and even the ongoing space race
between the world's superpowers. Unlike its inspiration, though,
the Cosmo just looked fast. The bullet train could easily hit
160 miles per hour, but with a whopping 109 horsepower
sputtering out of a one liter engine, the Cosmo could barely break a hundred, and it took eight whole seconds
to get to 60. The Cosmo certainly wasn't fast enough
to get you into space. Despite the amount of smoke
coming out of the tailpipe, making you assume it was a rocket ship. So, okay, fine. It wasn't exactly the fastest thing
on four wheels, but it did look great. And thanks to the lightweight,
it handled amazingly. So good, in fact,
that Mazda decided to take it racing. And this was the breakthrough moment
for Mazda. In the sixties, there was a race
called the 84 Hours of the Ring, a grueling endurance race that lasted
four days around Germany's Nurburgring. And it was there that the reliability
of the simple rotary engine shined. I know it sounds insane. Anyone who knows of the rotary
engine today, but there in the foggy hills of Germany, the modest Cosmo managed
to finish fourth on its first outing. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be enough
to put the Cosmo in the Sports Car Hall of Fame,
and it quickly became the car of the nerds journalist derisively called the Cosmo
the UFO. And with that far out sound
and insane styling, it was kind of hard to blame them. While Nissan was selling their 240Z
in record numbers and James Bond was out
murdering people in a 2000 GT, the Cosmo only found fame as a quirky
Japanese car fit for fighting Kaiju. Now, the Cosmo wasn't a failure, per se. It didn't sell great. It didn't change a lot of minds, but people did notice it
and therefore noticed the Mazda. That attention certainly gave the bigwigs
at Mazda confidence in the Wankel future. So following the Cosmo,
they stuck it in everything. There were the RX-3's
the B series truck, luxury cars. And then just as it was getting good,
there was an oil crisis. You know the story. Oil crisis. Gas prices, malaise. Era gas embargo. Cars begin to suck. And nothing was hurt
more by this than the rotary engine. Despite its small size and efficient design,
they got absolutely terrible gas mileage. And this is the era that essentially skyrocketed Japan
as a whole to the top of the car world. Small, lightweight, fuel efficient cars
powered by cheap and fun 4-cylinders with their confidence shaken and fearing
they'd be left in the dust. Mazda relegated the rotary
to only a select few cars on their lineup. Things began to look grim for Mazda. They'd bet it all on Wankel and his new
engine design, and it wasn't paying off. But at this point, Mazda had invested
too much in this project to give up on it. And I think we can all be pretty glad
that they didn't. So in 1978, with hearts
full of Pride, engineers at the Ready Mazda bet it all won last time. Time and time again, car brands forget
what makes a proper sports car great. But every once in a while
someone remembers the lightweight rear wheel drive tight suspension and an exhaust note that raises the hair
on the back of the neck. In 1978, Mazda remembered
dubbed the RX-7 SA The FB generation RX-7 was the first of
what was to become a sports car dynasty. Finally, this was what the Rotary engine
was made for, balance the Wankel engine output power
and torque of an engine twice its size, and it lived to sing at a high revving
note. Spinning in fury,
but absolutely content. Yes, the FB never had enough power
and even though it was one of the best handling cars in its class,
the lack of torque really held it back. But try telling that to anyone
who was driving one and they just smile and wave, pulling away and drowning you out with a rotary powered
backing track. At this moment in time,
Mazda was teetering on the brink. The Rotary experiment to this point
had been expensive and largely a defeat. But the FB did something that no other
Mazda sports car had done before. It's sold. almost poetic in the timing. Mazda's last gamble on the rotary engine
paid off right at the most pivotal moment and the success of the RX-7
kickstarted the heart of Mazda's sports car program right as the golden age
of Japanese sports cars was about to begin surprising everyone in Mazda. Most of the first generation
RX-7 sales had been to Americans. Decades of reliable, well-made cars
from Japan had finally broken past the well, let's be honest,
racist tendencies of the American public. So Mazda sent a team stateside
to see what all the fuss was about. What were they buying
and what were they dreaming of owning? The answer
to what we were buying was Corvettes. But what did we dream of owning? Apparently that was the Porsche 944. So Mazda set about making a car
with the performance to match the vet and the class
and sophistication of the Porsche 944. Yeah. You probably hear class and sophistication
and all you think of is weight And you're right. The FC weighed a whopping 800 lbs
more than its older brother. But this was 1986 and sports car buyers were expecting a little comfort
to go with the performance. Luckily, though, Mazda was still targeting Vette
and performance was front and center. Twin scroll turbos, adaptive independent
suspension and tight cornering. Thanks to a new four wheel
steering system. The FC generation RX-7
was poised to take on the American car market by force
when it landed on American shores. It was lauded by journalists and subsequently gobbled up by sporty,
dorky American car buyers. This was the car
that let you beat a Corvette with good design and technique
rather than brute force. And thanks to that, Americans
quickly looked past the funky engine design and heavy weight. Australians, on the other hand, still desired the light lotus
inspired balance of the FB. So Down Under you could purchase
a limited edition example of the FC RX-7 that had all the options
and technology stripped out, known as the RX-7 250 sports model. You paid a bit more to have an Aussie
rip out the power steering, the power windows and the rear wiper
blade to get that weight down closer to that of the FB
Whatever model of the FC you got though, you got one of the most refined, balanced
rotary sports cars ever made. And now Mazda's Grand Gamble
had finally seemed to be working with worldwide acceptance of this funky
spinning triangle method power delivery. The team in Japan set about taking
the platform to an entirely new level in a dimly lit office
building on the outskirts of Hiroshima. A project is outlined that would soon
take a worldwide effort to complete Operation Z, make Japan's greatest sports
car ever, and make it light. Thanks to the booming eighties
nineties, Japanese automakers were packing their sports cars
with more and more technology. Four corner steering all wheel drive twin turbos heads up displays big six cylinder engines,
electronically activated aerodynamics,
space age fighter jet interiors. All of this meant one thing
heavy chunky cars. Tom Matano and the team at Mazda
had a different idea. Hot off creating one of the world's
greatest sports cars, the Miata. Matano and his team saw their path
to Japanese sportscar greatness with lightness. Could they, with the help
of the lightweight rotary engine, make Japan's lightest and fastest sports
car? from the get go Mazda knew that they needed
to make something truly special. The first generation was fantastic,
but visually it was hard to deny how much they had copied from
Porsche's 944 This time, Mazda wanted to make something
truly unique. So why entrust everything to just one man
or just one team? Internally, they launched a competition
between teams in Japan, the UK and the United States
for the best designs. Nine designers around the world were all
given one goal to make a future classic, something that would be shown at Pebble
Beach for decades to come. Thankfully, this was just the project
that Wu-Huang Chin had been waiting for his entire life
as a child in Taiwan. Chin had seen photos of the Jaguar E-Type
and had become infatuated with its long curvy lines. So much
so that he purchased his own E-Type while living in California and working on
the design of the first generation Miata. When the competition to design
the new Generation RX-7 came about, Matano and Chin set about penning a car
with almost no straight lines. Meanwhile, back at home in Hiroshima,
an engineering team had put together a rough design of what could lay beneath
the RX-7’s skin Takaharu “Koby” Kobyakawa
one of Mazda’s original 47 Ronin led the team that managed to trim the fat out of nearly
every inch of the car's design. Project Z managed to put
the RX-7 on a 250 lb. diet, meaning that this generation
would be nearly half a tonne lighter than its competitors
from Nissan, Mitsubishi and Toyota. Weight savings alone would not be enough
to compete in the nineties market, though. The 13B
rotary engine would need a little help. So nestled into that ultralight
chassis was the first ever sequentially turbocharged
production engine. The 13B was half the size
of Godzilla's RB26. Hell, it was smaller than a three
horsepower gasoline generator, but it was putting out 255 horsepower. A new double wishbone suspension
gave the RX-7 near limitless grip. This was a true driver's car, balanced, lightweight and no gimmicks,
the result of a massive effort from a global team
to create sportscar perfection. Mazda's team set pen to paper in 1989,
and in 1992, they released pure automotive
art upon the world stage. But like so many great artists,
their songs would not be sung until long after they died in 1991. A very tired man grips a steering wheel
tight, his leg searing with pain. His body
dehydrated to the point of near death. But he presses on to push his car
across the finish line of the 24 hours of Le Mans One last time, he and his team are the first to bring a Japanese car
to the top podium spot. And that car was powered
by a rotary engine. A few months later, dealerships across
Japan began selling Mazda's
second greatest achievement, the FD RX-7 Look, there's there's a reason
everyone loves the nineties. This was the time when Japanese cars
hit their absolute peak. GT-R, supra, NSX VR4, Evo, STI, So many legendary names, so much noise that it was inevitable that some of them
would get lost in the fray. Among them was RX-7 Press reception to the newest Wankel
powered sports car was through the roof. The extremely lightweight design meant that the RX-7 punched way
above its pay grade, even nipping at the heels of the incredible
Honda NSX for one third of its price. It won Car of the year. Playboy preferred it over the Viper and
our RX-7 graced nearly every top ten list. Mazda's effort had not been in vain. Anyone who put their hands
on the steering wheel of the FD or heard its engine dance near Redline
rarely had anything bad to say. It was perfection. Mazda had swung for the fences,
knocked it out of the park and built a timeless masterpiece. And yet, well, it was never really the first name
in the Japanese sportscar Golden Age. It was always being overshadowed
by the Supra, the Nissan GT-R,
and even the Mitsubishi GTO. Why? Well, for starters,
the Rotary engine was just too weird, You had to feed it oil, like lots of oil. It was hard to maintain. And if you didn't do it right, you're
rebuilding the engine regularly. Even when it did run, it was smoky. It didn't get great gas mileage. And the Furious lawnmower sound
was kind of an acquired taste. Its sequential twin turbo system
was a revolution, but it was also awkward. You got a weird valley of power
as one turbo transitioned to the next. It wasn't as spacious
and as comfortable as its competition. It lacked all the wizardry and technology
that was the trend of the time. Sitting in a 300ZX was like piloting a fighter jet. Sitting in an RX-7 was like, well
driving a car. in the United States. The FD RX-7 ended sales
after just three years from 1992 to 1995. They actually skipped 1994. Japan got 11 years of FD. It struggled to sell in the UK. It had limited success in Australia. Then near the end of its run,
Mazda had started building the RX-8, a truly unworthy successor
and the final nail in the rotary coffin. The masterpiece that was the FD
RX-7 was sadly too little and too late. By the time the last RX-7
rolled off the assembly plant. Time had simply moved on past Mazda's
dream. Collectively, the world seemed to be done
with waiting for Mazda and had moved on to the comforts
of standard internal combustion engines. Mazda had spent decades
and countless millions on Wankel’s engine in the automotive industry. Rarely do you see risks as grand
as this taken and the sporadic sputtering rise and fall of the rotary engine is
probably a testament as to why Wankel’s original design may have been flawed,
but Mazda did actually make it work. They did the impossible. They had bet it all on
the spinning Dorito horse and managed to scrape together
enough chips to call it a win. But the Rotary could never reach
the potential of its piston counterparts. And when it came time to look
at a new generation of Rotaries in late 2000s, Mazda took one
look at the emission standards and began working on hybrids instead. But one group of people never gave up on Mazda's
dream. Enthusiasts
hidden among the public between the 50th WRX and the hundredth Mustang are those that
value driving dynamics more than sanity, who aren't afraid to spend a night in a garage
if it means a weekend on a mountain road. Those who keep their lanterns
lit for mazda's brave bet the hardened few toiling away, rebuilding,
maintaining and more importantly, red lining their rotary engines
to remove carbon buildup. This was who Mazda shaped
their ideals around their pursuit of the perfect sportscar. Using methods no one else would dare try
had culminated in a timeless masterpiece. Vision had created the RX-7 a vision that surpassed
so many hurdles that pushed teams of men through so many hardships
to finally realize perfection. Today,
Mazda still sits in the shadow Giants, but there isn't a car enthusiast alive
that doesn't know who they are. The FD was released over 30 years ago
and its rivals have faded in Luster. The GT-R is now a supercar for anime
weirdos. The Supra is a Frankenstein of BMW
and Toyota Mitsubishi, a fading light in the dark. But today and for decades to come. Parked on green hills among the world's
finest cars, you will find the last RX-7 leaming proof that sometimes
a grand gamble pays off.
I just stumbled onto this channel myself. Immediately one of my favorite car YouTubers.
Great story telling and good production value. Reminds me of "Revelations" by Jason Camissa vibes but at a much lower budget.
Not anytime in the foreseeable future. Mazda has all the sports car they currently want in the Miata. Unless the market shifts and people start buying more sports cars than crossovers, I don't see that changing.
This dudes narration is on point. Watched 3 or 4 of his videos today and every single one is excellent.
Unfortunately mazda has moved on from the zoom zoom days. It seems to be fully invested in the SUV and semi luxury market.
Mmmm rotary engines.
Every time I even see 'rx7' I have a flashback to rebuilding a carb on my friend's 84. Hands down one of the most difficult things I've done carwise. It's easier to rebuild an automatic transmission.
There are patents filed for an i6 rx9 that were leaked at the same time as the rotary Mx-30.